Pocket & Tails Go To Town

Genre: Childrens

Release Year: 1995

Developer: Softkey

Publisher: Softkey

Age Rating: Everyone

Playability Status: Perfect (Windows 3.1 required)

Tested On: Windows 8 x64, Windows XP

Availability: Copyright retained - Out of print/unavailable

Zowie! This cute little educational title will keep younger kids amused as they follow Pocket and Tails around town, solving puzzles and trying to catch the mischievous Wonderoos while they explore.

Installation

Pocket & Tails Go To Town is a 16 bit game, meaning it won’t work on 64 bit versions of Windows at all. To play the game you will need access to Windows 3.1, 95, 98 or Windows XP (32 bit version only).

Using Windows XP

You can run the game using Windows XP, either on an old computer or via a virtual machine. We tested the game and it ran just fine in our VMWare copy of Windows XP. To install the game, simply browse to the CD in “My Computer” then run the INSTLL.EXE file from the CD. Now, choose Pocket and Tails from the menu (there’s no point installing AOL, Imagination Network or On-line Document Viewer as these services closed down a long time ago). A message will appear stating that your PC is in 0 colour mode, this can be ignored. We recommend doing a full installation (a whopping 8 megabytes!). When the installer offers to install Quicktime, you should skip this step.

When installation is complete, you will need to manually browse to C:\P&T and run the GOTOTOWN program manually. If you need a shortcut to the program you will need to create it manually, right click and choose “Send To -> Desktop (create shortcut)”. Before playing, you might want to reduce your screen resolution so that the games graphics appear larger. Particularly if you run the game in a virtual machine you should set your host (main) operating systems screen resolution as low as possible.

Using Windows 3.1

The best way to play this game is using Windows 3.1. If you have a copy of Windows 3.1, you can run it on your modern PC by using DOSBox. Follow the tutorials here to get set up. Once set up, you can then install the game by running the INSTLL.EXE file from the CD-ROM using File Manager. We recommend doing a full installation (a whopping 8 megabytes!). When the installer offers to install Quicktime, you should complete this step too unless you already installed a Windows 3.1 compatible version of Quicktime into your Windows 3.1 system.

Since DOSBox has been designed for gaming, you should find that the game will scale perfectly into full screen mode (though black bars will still be present at the side of the screen on widescreen monitors). Remember you may need to change the screen resolution on your Windows 3.1 DOSBox machine (not your regular host operating system) for best results. We show you how to change screen modes in Windows 3.1 over on our tutorial page.

There aren’t any other settings to configure after installation, so you can hand the mouse over to your eager little explorer and let them play.